Xavier’s origins date back to 1915, when then Mother Katharine Drexel, a former Philadelphia socialite who founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and devoted her life to the education of African Americans and Native Americans, opened a high school on the site previously occupied by Southern University. A Normal School, offering one of the few career fields (teaching) open to Blacks at the time, was added two years later. Ten years later, in 1925, Xavier University of Louisiana became a reality when the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences was established.

Xavier University of Louisiana was founded upon the principle of creating a more just and humane society through the education of traditionally marginalized people and today Xavier celebrates Juneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. Today, Juneteenth commemorates African American liberation and gives emphasis to education and achievement.

On June 19, 1865 Union soldiers landed at Galveston, TX sharing that the Civil War had ended and that the enslaved were now free. This was 2.5 years after the Emancipation Proclamation  was signed on Jan. 1, 1863. From its Galveston, Texas origin in 1865, the observance of June 19^th as the African American Emancipation Day has spread across the United States and beyond.